Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Media Mini-Trend on Christians at the Movies

Apparently like Hollywood itself where an Armageddon is followed (or was it preceded?) by a Deep Impact, reporting on Hollywood “happens” to hit the occasional trendy topic. This time it’s Christians at the movies. First it was TIME with “The Gospel According to Spider-Man”; now Fox News is reporting on Christians “finding faith at the movies.” This piece has a few good quotes and links. I suppose any attempt to find meaning and purpose in filmed entertainment is something to celebrate. But as Alex Wainer commented in a recent e-mail, one sometimes wonders if this is anything more than glorified sermon illustrations. I think several of the sites noted avoid that trap. Come to think of it, most of these sites have been going for years now. I hope their discovery wasn’t too much of a surprise for our intrepid reporters. And it’s not fair to Catholics and liberal Protestants to blame this all on evangelicals. There’s a strong tradition of spiritual film interpretation in many flavors of the Christian faith, though I suppose it’s fair to say that evangelicals would have a tendency to approach the filmed “text” in a certain characteristic way.